Asubtle change in the definition of an “agriculturist” in the draft Central GST Bill, currently under consideration of Parliament, has brought absentee landlords under the ambit of the goods and services tax (GST). Also, a farmer who is involved in sericulture — the rearing of silkworms — may be required to register for GST under the new indirect tax regime, following the tweak in the definition. The jury, though, is still out on whether bringing sericulture farming under the ambit of GST will increase the price tag of your favourite silk sari. The definition of an "agriculturist" according to section 2(8) of the draft Central GST (CGST) Bill has been amended to cover an individual or any Hindu Undivided Family cultivating land either through own labour or hired labour under individual or family supervision. The draft model GST Bill introduced last November referred to sn “agriculturist” as “any person” cultivating land. “The government intends to cover only the barebones or ac…

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Friday saidablack money declarant under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) will be allowed to fileadeclaration, under the stipulated Form, 1 by April 10, if tax and penalty is paid by the deadline that ended on Friday. The Form 1 isadeclaration format that has to be submitted byablack money holder to the designated tax department authority viaahard copy or online. Following this, the taxman will issueaForm 2 or certificate stating that the declaration has been accepted and is valid under the PMGKY. The CBDT had on Thursday issued orders that all designated offices of the income tax department that accept declarations under the black money window of PMGKY will remain open till the midnight of March 31 Business Standard New Delhi,01th April 2017

The government on Friday lowered interest rates on smallsavings schemes such as the public provident fund, oneto fiveyear time deposits, fiveyear recurring deposits, the senior citizens scheme Kisan Vikas Patra and the Sukanya Samriddhi scheme for the AprilJune quarter,amove that could lead to banks cutting their deposit rates as well. Of the 12 small savings schemes, the Centre cut the rates by 0.1 percentage point over those in the JanuaryMarch quarter for 11 of them, leaving out the savings deposit, which was maintained at 4 per cent. Since April last year, the interest rates for all small savings schemes have been recalibrated onaquarterly basis. “To bring such rates somewhat closer to market rates, the government has decided to effectareduction of 0.1 percentage point (10 basis points) in interest rates across the board in all the schemes, except the Post Office Savings Account, which has been left untouched,” the finance ministry said inastatement. “Small savings schemes will cont…

Taxpayers who had deposited Rs.2 lakh or more after demonetisation, will have to make this disclosure in the new income tax returns (ITR) forms notified on Friday. The information is also to be furnished in the new onepage, simplified ITR1 ´Sahaj´ form for taxpayers who have income from salary,ahouse property or earn interest totalling up to Rs.50 lakh. The ITR forms for assessment year 201718 were notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). Column PartEof the ITR1 form seeks information on cash deposits made by the assessee between November 9, 2016, and December 30, 2016, if the “aggregate cash deposits” during this period were Rs.2 lakh or more. Asimilar column has been provided in all the other six ITR forms launched on Friday. Giving the rationale behind the move,asenior official said “While the government has issued notices under Operation Clean Money after it detected certain large suspicious deposits by people, there could be other instances of deposits of over Rs.2 lakh b…

The goods and services tax (GST) Council on Friday cleared rules on five aspects of the new indirect tax regime and tentatively approved four sets of norms. This follows the clearing of the GST Bills by the Lok Sabha and the focus shifting to rules and the fitment of rates. The Council´s next meeting on May 18 and 19 in Srinagar will take up the four sets of norms (tentatively approved on Friday) and itemwise rates. This will leave six weeks for businesses to prepare for these changes before the planned rollout on July 1. The five sets of rules the Council cleared are on registration, returns, payment, refunds and invoices. They were approved earlier, too, but were changed in bits and pieces to bring them in sync with the four Bills cleared by the Lok Sabha. The latter will be discussed and passed in the Rajya Sabha when Parliament reconvenes on Wednesday, afterashort break. The other four it approved were with regard to input tax credit, valuation, transitional provisions and composition, U…